Chapter 4. Stars Go Blue
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Melissa ran inside the cave and knelt down beside Jackson. He was sprawled out on the ground and unconscious. A large cut ran from his elbow to the back of his wrist.
Melissa picked up his head carefully and placed it on a rock by his head. Aside from the one on his arm, there were various other cuts and bruises covering his face and arms.
Melissa took off her pack and searched around for the first aid supplies. She took out some anti-septic pads and went to clean off his arm. At first she was weary about touching it cause it looked so bad, but after dabbing it a little, she was pleased to find that he was out cold.
After cleaning off the cut as much as she could, she contemplated on what to do about it.
'I could just wrap it in gauze, but it look to serious for just that. I guess than only leaves me with one choice.' she thought as she dug around in her pack.
She took out a spool of thread and a needle. After carefully threading the needle and cleaning it off, she took her place beside Jackson once again.
He had lost much blood as it was. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now.
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Jackson woke up early the next morning to find that he was covered with a blanket, had band-aids on his arm and face, and looking down he saw that his shirt was off and half of his right arm was wrapped in gauze.
But when he went to try and take it off, he heard a voice on the other side of the cave say,
"Don't take that off."
Jackson suddenly became aware of a soft light. Looking over he found a small fire a couple of feet away from him and Melissa lightly stoking the fire with a stick.
"I hade to put stitches in your arm." Melissa said walking over and sitting down beside him.
"Oh. Uh, thanks." Jackson said confused. "How did you find me? Even more, why did you find me?"
"I got worried when I heard that you went off alone, so I went to find you. What happened?"
"Well, apparently the little pig that Nathan and Daley caught has a brother. A big one with tusks. He chassed me until I got pinned up against a tree. But when he charged I was able to duck away so that he only got my arm. Finally, he chassed me here. I stopped at the edge, but he charged again and pushed me off. I crawled in here and was able to hide until he went away. Then I passed out." Jackson explained.
"Jackson, you shouldn't have gone off alone."
"I had to. I had to get away." Jackson said closing his eyes.
"From what?" Melissa asked hoping to find out what she wanted to know the most.
"It doesn't matter." Jackson said throwing the blanket off.
"Look, thanks for helping me, but I think I can go on alone now." he said starting to sit up.
"Um...I wouldn't..!" Melissa started as Jackson sat up.
But when he was up he grimaced and put a hand to his head before falling back on the backpack that served as his pillow.
He looked up to see Melissa giving him an 'I tried to tell you' smile.
"I was scared." Jackson sighed.
"About what?" Melissa asked confused.
"I have no good memories of my dad."Contrary to what everyone believes I actually used to have it nice. We lived in a nice house and my dad made good pay and supported us well. There was just one problem, he was an alcoholic."
Jackson looked up at Melissa who was hanging on to every word.
"He would come home in the afternoons stressed from work and he wasn't home fifteen minuets before he started yelling at my mom. After about an hour he would storm out and go to the bar. Me and my little brother Johnny always stayed upstairs until our mom told us it was safe."Jackson said sadly.
"That's rough." Melissa said sympathetically.
"It gets worse. A little after bedtime my dad would come home drunk. He would start yelling and hitting my mom. But no matter what he did to her, she wouldn't let him get to our bedrooms. That's just how much she loved us. Johnny and I would get so scared though that he would run into my room and sleep in my bed with me."
By now Jackson was almost to tears, so was Melissa.
"I can't begin to count how many times me and Johnny walked down the stairs in the mornings to find our mom cooking breakfast with a black eye or a cracked rib."
"She really loved you." Melissa said squeezing Jackson's hand that she had some how come to hold.
"Yeah. Her and Johnny are the only to reasons I want to go back home."
"But, what does all this have to do with..."
"That's not all. One night my dad came home in a rage. Evidently he had gone to the bar and was angry because he lost a promotion at work to some other guy. When he stomped into the house me and Johnny had just enough time to jump behind the couch before he saw us. It began with the usual yelling, then he started slapping and pushing. Finally, it was all-out punches and kicks."
Jackson and Melissa now had tears flowing freely down both of their faces.
"I never actually saw anything. But I can remember pressing the side of Johnny's head into my chest and putting my hand over his other ear so he didn't have to hear the cursing and yelling. Finally, I guess he ran into his bedroom and pulled out a gun. He shot at my mom twice, but only hit her once in the leg. But she's smart and she fell down anyway. Then my dad put the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. I called the authorities and they came and took my dad's body away and took my mom to the hospital."
"Is she ok?" Melissa asked sniffling.
"Yeah." Jackson half smiled. "But without my dad supporting us, we couldn't afford to live in our house any more, and before you knew it we were living in a trailer park with my mom working as a waitress in a truck stop diner. That's when I started to get into trouble. Finally, my mom couldn't support us anymore and called some people rom the city. They came and took Johnny and me to foster homes. The people there were great. They did everything they could to make me more comfortable. They even tried to better my education bu sending me to Hartwell. But since I had been home-schooled all my life, I wasn't really social. That's why I didn't have any friends." Jackson finished as he wiped his cheeks.
"So, is that why you ran away? You didn't think we would understand you?" Melissa asked.
"No. Like I said, I was scared. I was scared that I'd turn out just like my dad and hurt you. Melissa, your kind and caring and beautiful. And I'm the exact opposite." Jackson said sadly.
Melissa smiled as she leaned over and softly kissed him.
"Jackson, your perfect. Sure, you might be socially dented, but that's something we can work on. And as for everything you did before you came here, You've never done anything to us!" Melissa said smiling softly.
Jackson smiled widely before reaching up with his bad arm and pulling Melissa into a deeper kiss.
"Looks to me like your doing better." she said looking at his bad arm. "Think you can walk back to camp?"
"Sure." Jackson said sitting up. "But first tell me, why did you take off my shirt?"
"Because it was wet and dirty and I didn't want you to catch a cold." she giggled
"Riiiight!" Jackson said sarcastically.
